Where To Find Stock Photos

If you write a blog about anything other than your own life with selfies, there is a good chance you need photos to draw in your readers.

When To Buy Stock Photography

Whether you are a blogger or e-commerce merchant, your website needs photo­graphs. Resellers might expect whole­salers to provide product art. But angles, shadows, back­grounds, and resolu­tions vary among suppliers. This may require custom photography.

Photographers should be compen­sated for years of study, practice, equip­ment invest­ments, and dedica­tion. Many work on assign­ment and, perhaps more, submit images to stock photo­graphy websites.

With excellent keyword filters and vast selection, Adobe Stock is one of the most popular. Currently, for 10 bucks per month, 10 sub­scrip­tion images are credited to your account. Competitors like iStockphoto.com (by Getty Images), Shutterstock.com and Dreamstime some times advertise 100 photos for $100 to get away from the monthly subscription model.

Photo­graphs that are more difficult to acquire because of altitude, travel distance, or complexity are not usually among the bargain photos. Adobe Stock also offers more expen­sive premium and extended-use images.

Low-price stock images are often from up-and-coming photo­graphers. The stock photographs may be outtakes from experienced photo­grapher photo shoots.

You might find that lighting or color balance is not ideal. Aberration is sometimes notice­able when zooming in. Model hair and makeup are not often ideal. Products may have visible dust and finger­prints. Some scans from analog photographs include scratches. In short, Photoshop skills are helpful. Do not expect bargain photos to be of the caliber of “amazing sports photos.”

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash.

Pay attention to usage rights. Some require photographer attri­bu­tion. For others, it may be optional. Do not expect to buy a photo for a buck and then get rich reproducing it on T-shirts without getting either a cease-and-desist order or a request for a supple­mental licensing fee.

Free Options for Stock Photography

If you write a blog about anything other than your own life with selfies, there is a good chance you need a resource for photos to draw in your readers. When you are on a tight budget or over your limit on a subscrip­tion model, free options like the ones below may be best:

1. Burst
2. FoodiesFeed
3. Freepik
4. Freestocks.org
5. Gratisography
6. ISO Republic
7. Kaboom Pics
8. Life of Pix
9. Morguefile
10. New Old Stock
11. Pexels
12. Picjumbo
13. Pikwizard
14. Pixabay
15. Pixino
16. PXHere
17. Rawpixel
18. Reshot
19. SkitterPhoto
20. Stockvault
21. StyledStock
22. Unsplash
23. Wunderstock

The user interface for many of the royalty-free sites is similar but key­word tags affect search results. You may discover a few of the same images on multiple sites. Ads on free stock web­sites some­times inte­grate alterna­tive fee-based stock photos with results. Sites that charge have better search engines and filters with more photo­graphs, vectors, and videos.

Photographers snap pictures every day, testing composi­tion, camera settings or docu­men­ting adven­tures. Within months they can there­fore acquire a vast collec­tion of random images. To get by, they may monetize them by offering them as stock images. This pro­vides expo­sure (no pun intended) so name credit is often appreciated.

The downside to stock photo­graphy is that you cannot control when others may use the same image. For brand­ing, this can cause a bit of confu­sion if competi­tors or unrelated but damaging entities use the same photo. For dis­tinc­tion, use tight cropping, photo filters, or create montages.

Main photo by Arun Anoop from Unsplash.